For Boston

So, Boston. I've been keeping quiet, not watching the news, turning down the radio – basically burying my head in the sand over Boston. I claim Boston as my own the same way many of us do. I arrived in Boston when I was 18 and left when I was 24, and in those six years some of the very best times of my life happened.

I feel the way about Boston that I bet many people do about home – the ones who don't return and settle a few towns away like I did. I don't visit enough, but when I do I feel like I'm reconnecting with something that I've lost track of, and I promise to come back sooner the next time.

This thing that happened hurts my heart. And I've decided that I'm going to let it. I don't want to get over it, not yet. I don't want to just be grateful for the fact that no one close to me was hurt or killed even though a few were thisclose. (But I am grateful. So, so grateful.) I want to acknowledge that a lot more was lost that day than lives and limbs. What happened Monday will change that city and that marathon forever.

When I was in my early 20's, a friend from Boston was killed in a car accident. He was nineteen, and he was one of the best human beings I had ever known. It was a profound loss. The day of his funeral was a gorgeous sunny day, and that really pissed me off. In fact, everything that day pissed me off because the world didn't stop. Most of the world didn't even know what it had lost. How dare the sun shine, how dare the world not stop when his life did?

I wonder if people feel that way in Boston. I cannot begin to imagine what the victims of this horrible thing and their families are feeling like, but I bet some of them feel like I did then.

If I were still religious, I would pray but I think I've forgotten how to do even that. What I did instead, when I realized that this Boston thing was making me cry and lose sleep and not feeling better as the days go by, was go to the beach with the tiny humans. I don't even know if I realized why I was going until I got there. I could breathe easier. I could be quiet, and still, and figure it out.

And what I figured out is that to feel better, I've got to feel bad. In solidarity with my city, the city who gave me so much and made me the person that I am. I know Boston is strong. I know something like this can't break a place like that; but it can irrevocably change it. And that's what I'm most sad about. Boston is a city steeped in history – and this is a chapter that it just didn't need. Boston, you deserved so much better.

I'm going to cry and be sad a little longer. Then I'm going to be brave and make plans to take the train into the city with the tiny humans. It's been too long since I've been "home", and something like this isn't going to keep me away.

Comments

It's been hard for me. I live about an hour and a half from there, but many friends and family members were there that day. All fine, physically, but we're all battered emotionally. Last night after they caught the suspect alive, I slept and breathed easier for the first time in six days. Of course many people's lives were altered forever, but there was just so much love and bravery going on. Boston forever!

As irresponsible as this might sound, I generally like to tune out from the news. It's depressing, irritating, and just disgusting. I followed the inaccurate and often presumptious news thoughout the Boston marathon tragedy and manhunt. I feel like we're all impacted by this tragedy. Sadly, we seem to go from tragedy to tragedy and it's beginning to feel like what one blogger described as "the new normal." We keep bouncing back and doing it together, but I wish the hatred and foolishness would just stop. Visiting from SITS.

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About Leah

Thirtysomething wife and mama to three kids who are known to the blogosphere as T, A & E. We live in Maine with the kids’ dad, R – who also happens to be the boss of our marketing agency. The fun never ends, I tell you. Currently trying to remember how to take care of a baby, due to the four year age gap between A and E. In my spare time (HA!) I take endless photographs of the tiny humans and sew ill-fitting clothes for A. Me, in three words: always perfectly imperfect.

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